In Walter Benjamin’s, “The Storyteller,” Benjamin laments the gradual decline of the story as oral practice and narrative form in modern society. He remarks, “[b]y now almost nothing that happens benefits storytelling, almost everything that happens benefits information” (4). By “information,” Benjamin is referring to the news that people receive and share through a variety of mediums. Benjamin’s […]

Co-authored by Sara Humphreys “Kent State Murder” Type it into Google and a number of images, websites, and blogs will come up, along with the Neil Young song above. The historical moment is repeated, consistently, through images and through the circulation of these images on the internet and through other mediums. Digital culture has canonized this moment […]

Co-authored by Sara Humphreys When we began the this site and the project, our group was uncertain where to really begin. There were so many questions. How do we define what we are doing? What are we doing? The research my colleagues and I have done has provided as many questions as answers. Work by […]

I have been a fan of the films of Stanley Kubrick since I was a teenager. I loved how Kubrick seemed to be a mystic of sorts. He relied on the susceptibility of the audience to be entertained while also being convinced that what they were seeing was reality. Kubrick constructed a fourth wall using […]

One of the purposes of this site is to show that there are other ways of learning over and above standardized methods (like an instructor reading from slides or, worse, a textbook. if you do this: stop – stop it now). The essay format has been a stand-by in the humanities and social sciences. Professors […]

The incremental changes in technology has left literature a little dusty. Libraries and the books they house maintain a dignified and necessary position in society, but it is not unusual to hear that a library has closed down, perhaps because of the lack of use from the public or lack of funding. However, when a new gadget is […]

In the early 18th century, Joseph Addison, a publisher and playwright, founded the daily periodical, The Spectator. The goals of the magazine were idealistic: “to enliven morality with wit, and to temper wit with morality…to bring philosophy out of the closets and libraries, schools and colleges, to dwell in clubs and assemblies, at tea-tables and coffeehouses” (Addison). Essentially, […]

Similar to many students, social media is part of my day. It needs to be: family, friends, life, etc – all of these aspects of my life hold the main one up, which is my education and future. The logistics of my life are different from students of previous generations because students now live in a […]

EDITOR’S NOTE: THIS POST IS CURRENTLY BEING REVISED FOR CONTENT. TED.com‘s slogan “Ideas Worth Spreading” promotes the idea that it is the human capacity for imagining and sharing possibilities that counts. Indeed, the website has become so popular that TED lectures are being offered all throughout the world, creating what could be called an educational […]

Text: The wording of anything written or printed; the structure formed by the words in their order; the very words, phrases, and sentences as written (OED) Institute: A society or organization instituted to promote some literary, scientific, artistic, professional, or educational object; also, the building in which the work of such a society is carried […]